Kamala Sohonie

Kamala Sohonie was an Indian biochemist who became the first Indian woman to receive a PhD in a scientific discipline in 1939. She was also the first woman to be admitted to the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bangalore, where she faced discrimination and prejudice from the then director and Nobel laureate C.V. Raman. She overcame these challenges and proved her excellence in research on proteins in milk, pulses and legumes. She also discovered the presence of cytochrome C, an enzyme essential for cellular respiration, in plants. Sohonie went to Cambridge University for her PhD, where she worked with Derek Richter and Robin Hill. She returned to India in 1940 and joined the Lady Hardinge Medical College in New Delhi as a professor of biochemistry. She later became the director of the Nutrition Research Laboratory in Coonoor and the Royal Institute of Science in Bombay. She focused her research on the effects of vitamins and the nutritional values of various food items consumed by the poor sections of the Indian population. She also developed a dietary supplement from palm nectar called Neera, which was rich in vitamin C and could prevent malnutrition among children and pregnant women. She received the Rashtrapati Award for this work. Sohonie was a pioneer in the field of biochemistry and nutrition, and a role model for women in science. She was also a social activist who supported the causes of women's education, family planning and environmental protection. She died in 1998 at the age of 87, shortly after collapsing during a felicitation ceremony organised by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) in New Delhi.